


To My Love and Other Lost Things

by elluvias



Category: Dragon Age
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-27
Updated: 2011-07-27
Packaged: 2017-10-21 20:10:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/229264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elluvias/pseuds/elluvias
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Minifill to a prompt on the kink!meme about unrequited love. It's a little sad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To My Love and Other Lost Things

_I loved him._

 _How easy it is to write these words down, to give them a voice with ink and tears when my voice cannot say it._

 _I love him still._

 _A different love now, one that aches and tastes like ashes in my mouth. A love that died before it had breath, a love that is hidden from the world. How he would laugh at this, these words I write not nearly as elegant as what he can make. I am but an apprentice still to his mastery of the written and spoken word. Following along behind him like some wet behind the ears brat._

 _He dazzles me with his smile. Mother had warned me of this, Father had too. Love is not for mages, they were a lark, a once in an Age affair that still ended in tragedy. Mages and love do not, cannot be together. And I, emboldened by my parents’ example, ignoring their warnings and cautions threw myself into life and love with all the zeal I could muster._

 _I found my love, my soul mate in a city far from home…no from my former home. I have a home here now, because he is here and I cannot bear to let this city fall to ruin and chaos…because I love him. I would have been content to move on from here, to find some backwater village and once again till land. I would have been fine with anonymity, I would have preferred it to all the bravado and bluster I bring up in every conversation with anyone I ever met._

 _He wishes for a hero, he wishes for a legend, and it is all I can give him. The blood on my hands, the tears in my eyes, the broken bones and tattered soul I now call my own are for his enjoyment. He sees me as his friend, and I see myself a tool for his enjoyment. I rise to power not on my own will, but because I am here and I can do something and he always needs another story to write. If I keep it up, perhaps he will never have eyes for anyone other than me._

 _Perhaps one day, when Bianca finally breaks, he will make a new weapon and name it after me. Unlikely, but still I aim for the only thing I know I can have. I am not ugly, but I am not a beauty that fells men in their tracks. I am a good person, I stand up for the weak and the oppressed because it is the right thing to do, I help people because I can offer it. The problem, it seems, is that I am human. It has nothing to do with being a mage or any other issue everyone else would take up with me. I am too tall, not curvy enough. I know these things without being told, I know this because I can read between the lines my love and I know that were I the same as you we would be married and have ankle biters of our own. For all our adventuring and ne’er-do-well ways we want the same things in the end._

 _But this…this is my end. I cannot go on, and for that I apologize. I was born on the run, and now I go back to my roots. I wish I could stay, I wish many things, but I have given you the greatest story I can give my love. There are no more tall tales, no more grand adventures. Even you cannot put a good spin on the deeds I must perform in the name of freedom. I will run, and even I cannot tell if I am running towards or away from destiny. This coward’s farewell, if it can be called that, will be the last you will hear from me. I entrust it to you, my oldest friend, my dearest friend, to tell them what you want. Please forgive me Aveline, for this final burden, and know above all else that I love you as the sister blood never gave us the grace to be, but pain and hardship made us. Farewell dear sister, and know I will keep you and Kirkwall safe._

 _Hawke_

He smoothed the letter on his table with trembling hands, each word memorized, each tearstain noted and catalogued. Aveline had left long ago, left him with this note Hawke had written. She had never meant for his eyes to see it. He knew that, Aveline knew that and still she had delivered it to him with a grim finality that had him aching. Fifteen years since she’d come to Kirkwall, five since she’d left, and only hours since they’d gotten word of her death.

There was no need to keep secrets for a dead woman.

He tossed his glass at a wall in a fit of broody pique that would have made him seem like Fenris. His chest heaved and he crumpled onto the table, because for as well as he thought he’d known her he’d never known that. Had never seen that coming, had never realized…

She had loved _him_.

And it was too late now, too little too late to look back on his life, look back on his dreams and realize they meant nothing now because he loved her too. He loved her with her ill timed humor and her bright smile, with her penchant for mischief and the good heart beating in her chest. He loved her, despite their differences, despite everything that had happened.

“Forgive me, Hawke.”

What hurt the most was, as he held back the tears and whispered the words into the empty suite, that she already had long ago when he’d been too stupid to ask for it or know he needed it. For all his wisdom he had lost the woman he loved because she had known him too well and he hadn’t known himself at all.

“Because I love you too.”

He picked up another glass, surprisingly full, and toasted the air.

“To us, to our love, and all the other lost things we never knew we could have.”


End file.
